Decathlon records new growth spurt

Last year, French sports retailer Decathlon posted solid growth: sales rose sharply, to a greater extent online than in the sporting goods chain’s 1,747 stores.

Travel and e-commerce

Last year, the global sports market was highly dynamic, says Decathlon with a feeling of satisfaction. The Covid effect clearly continued to have its impact: people started looking for new hobbies and new ways of exercising, which led to a 21 % increase in sales for the French sports chain. Net sales amounted to 13.8 billion euros.

Online sales even increased by 30 %, following the already strong online growth during the lockdowns in 2020. E-commerce already accounts for 21 % of the chain’s total sales, which amounts to some three billion euros. Last year, the chain also launched Decathlon Travel, a new travel platform offering thirty sporty travel destinations. The retailer booked a net profit of 913 million euros from all this.

Today, Decathlon is active in seventy countries and employs 105,000 people. The sports chain operates its own stores in sixty countries, and has three production countries and seven countries with franchise stores.